Can I come out

I like the contrast, and shadows with the door, but---?? Underexposed, aligned, what else?? A couple of different edits as well.

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …L/IMG_1171-L.jpg&lb=1&s=A

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …L/IMG_1181-L.jpg&lb=1&s=A

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …L/IMG_1176-L.jpg&lb=1&s=A

Very cute photo. I like the third one best but I'd crop out the black looking floor at the bottom.

rrblint wrote in post #18237794
Very cute photo. I like the third one best but I'd crop out the black looking floor at the bottom.

+1. Nice capture.

First one.

And I would DEF leave the floor as it is. The crop does nothing. You're telling the story, not showing off the dog per se :]

If you wanted to you could reduce luminescence of red to bring the door down a bit. Otherwise I like 1 and 2. Nice job.

.

What strikes me the instant I look at the image is all of the glare coming off the door. There is so much light that is being reflected off the door that the door just shows up as a bunch of glare. I don't know if that can be processed out in a way that would give excellent results (just as if there had never been any glare at all), or if you would have to re-shoot it to get such results.

I would think that there would be different times of day when the glare isn't so nasty, or days that have different weather, etc. Gotta be something you can do, even if it involves artificial lighting and hanging tarps up all over the place, like automotive photographers do, to cut out glare and reflected light.

.

Do you mind if I post a crop?

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18237929
Do you mind if I post a crop?

Feel free

The subject isn't the doors, it's the dog. Unless you just painted the doors and want to show them off. The inclusion of so much door hides the subject and makes it secondary to the overall image. Even in the second image the door handles are distracting and the subject is in a weird position ... horizontally centered but vertacally at the bottom.

Here the subject is in the rule of thirds area. I bumped up the saturation a bit, but I'm just on my phone. Probably could take a little more off the right.

Door hardware is blown out.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18239105
The subject isn't the doors, it's the dog. Unless you just painted the doors and want to show them off.

Hosted photo: posted by Left Handed Brisket in
./showthread.php?p=182​39105&i=i94944464
forum: Critique Corner

That's an effective crop, Brian. However, if the subject is the dog, then why did the OP focus on the left door panel, and leave the dog to be so soft? I mean, usually, whatever one's subject is, that is usually what they focus on.

.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18239273
That's an effective crop, Brian. However, if the subject is the dog, then why did the OP focus on the left door panel, and leave the dog to be so soft? I mean, usually, whatever one's subject is, that is usually what they focus on.

.

Auto focus algorithms in cameras look for the highest contrast in the focus area. Unfortunately for the photographer, sometimes that means that the desired point of focus is missed a bit.

dmward wrote in post #18246605
Auto focus algorithms in cameras look for the highest contrast in the focus area. Unfortunately for the photographer, sometimes that means that the desired point of focus is missed a bit.

Yes, agreed.

It is also the reason that we do not blindly trust our camera's autofocus system, but rather learn how to force it to do precisely what we want, instead of just letting it do whatever it is inclined to do.

.

I like the first shot the best as the dog is looking directly at the camera and engages the viewer. I also like the original crop as a tighter crop loses the full context of the story of the dog peeking outside, perhaps planning an escape or patiently waiting for someone to come home.

However, the focus should be on the dog and the doors are so bright that it really pulls the eye away from the dog. Some dodging of the dog and burning of the doors can redirect the focus to your subject. This is a little sloppy as the jpeg was rather small and tended to fall apart quite quickly with editing:

.

Really nice edit, Dave!

You managed to get rid of so much of that nasty glare from the surface of the doors - what a huge improvement that makes!

.